Taking a Bite out of Life
by Maddeline Kirkland-Bonnefoy
Summary: - As Haruka spirals farther and farther downward into self-destruction, can Evelyn help save her? And, if she can't, is Deidara willing to reach back into his own painful past with eating disorders, in order to help his daughter's best friend? - Modern AU; rated for themes; SasoDei relationship and HaruLyn friendship.


**...You can all chase me with knives a pitchforkes and such if you want, but this has been in the works for two years now, and so will be given priority over my other in-progress works until it's finished (it'll only be four chapters, plus maybe an epilogue, so don't worry too much). As of right now, I will be writing Part III, while Koneko 9who else do I co-author with? XD) will be working on Part II, and later Part IV. Now that the explanations have been taken care of...**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Haruka/_Sailor Moon_ belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, while Sasori and Deidara/_Naruto_ and Naruto _Shippuden_ belong to Masashi Kishimoto. Evelyn belongs to Koneko.**

**Warning(s): Graphic depictions of purging/eating disorders; soft yaoi.**

**IF READING A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF PURGING WILL LIKELY TRIGGER YOU, DO NOT READ THIS, OR CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK, KNOWING THAT YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

* * *

Though she couldn't remember when it had gotten this bad, she could clearly remember that it had begun when she was in fifth grade. It had begun with her noticing that she wasn't like the other girls her age – not the same size, to be precise. They were all scrawny and bird-like; her eleven-year-old self had concluded that it must be her bone structure which affected her body size, which would have been easily assumed, due to her broad shoulders. Of course, that was no excuse to _weigh _more, she decided; so, she changed her eating habits, along with how much she ate, but still couldn't seem to attain her goal of slimming down. She struggled for quite some time – perhaps two years – before anything changed. When she began seventh grade, she hit a growth spurt; her weight didn't change, but she gained four inches in height. Before she had been 5'5"; she was now 5'9".

Being the tallest in her class – hell, the tallest in the entire middle school – took some of the scrutiny off of her weight, but things only got worse at home. She was well used to the insults from her father by now (brat, stupid, worthless, fat whore, etc) but now "giant freak" had been added to the list. By the time her seventh grade year had passed, she had enrolled in martial-arts classes, and joined the track team, to work more on her weight. It did little, but it was enough for that moment in time. However, soon it was far from enough. As her eighth grade year passed, she began to eat less and less, often skipping meals entirely, but no more than one a day. To top all of this off, she came out to her parents; her uncaring mother seemed unfazed, and her hateful father added "dyke" to his list of sneered insults. All in all, however, it changed little for her.

And then, almost suddenly, _everything_ changed.

As ninth grade began, she came to a realization: she had finally hit rock bottom. She came upon this, when she first skipped two meals in one day, and when she made herself purge what little of her dinner she had eaten. She did her best to deny it, but by the time December of that year came around, she would purge after eating even the smallest portion of anything, and other than that wouldn't eat at all. Slowly, she grew weaker, though she ignored it; she was also losing weight, and so it was worth it. Of course, she only saw the upsides: she grew quicker around the track and in the sparring ring, if only through sheer force of will. She was now glad that she didn't have friends – she didn't have to lie to anyone. At least, she didn't have to lie to anyone who actually cared.

Then, around the end of January (ironically, her sixteenth birthday), she met Evelyn Akasuna – and everything changed again.

* * *

The way Evelyn had come to find out had been rather peculiar. It wasn't that she'd caught Haruka with her fingers down her throat, nor had she finally clued in on the fact that Haruka didn't eat anything. She loved her best friend to pieces, but even Haruka would be the first to admit that the smaller blonde was dense as lead at times. No, Evelyn had come to find out due to the fact that Haruka could no-longer wiggle her way out of having dinner with Evelyn's family. All excuses had been exhausted by this time, and so she had no choice – not unless she wanted to give concrete evidence that she had something to hide, and risk losing the one and only friend she had. Her conscience told her not to be stupid, not to bet everything on just one friendship; naturally, she ignored her conscience flat out after about two seconds. After all, even if Evelyn did find out, she wouldn't hate her, right?

Haruka chose to ignore that thought as well, as she headed for the Akasuna household.

Everything had gone smoothly, up until after dinner. The taller of the two teens had finally gotten to meet her best friend's parents, and she had to say, they weren't as crazy as Evelyn had made them out to be. Quirky, and a bit odd, but certainly not crazy; Haruka felt that her own parents were more insane. (Though she would only later admit this to Evelyn, she found the arguments the two men had about art hilarious.) She could also now see what each of her parents had passed down to the soccer player, and what was unique to Evelyn herself. Needless to say, the track-star was certainly surprised.

It seemed that in the most basic of her looks (hair color, eye color, skin tone, etc) Evelyn favored her "mother," while in the finer details (facial structure, stature, a bit of her personality, etc) she took after her "father." For example, her blonde hair and silver-blue eyes came from her "mother" Deidara; while her more delicate facial structure and her short height came from her "father" Sasori. Her uniqueness came to play in two places: her sportiness, and her branch of art. While neither of her parents was sporty in any way, Evelyn played a myriad of them (though she favored soccer and volleyball) and she had a natural talent for drama and theater, while her parents favored creating explosive sculptures ("Fleeting, un!") and building marionettes ("Eternal, brat."), respectfully.

The elder teen (Haruka was sixteen; Evelyn was fourteen) would more than likely have analyzed the Hell out of the smaller blonde's relationship with her parents, had dinner not been called at that moment. Haruka could literally _feel_ the blood drain from her face, as her stomach tied itself in knots at the very _thought_ of food. Of course, as was just her luck, Deidara had noted her reaction – and closely, at that. She would have noted that it was too close for just the concern of a friend's parent – _'He knows something!'_ her mind would have screamed at her – had she been paying any attention. As it was, and rather ironically at that, she was too busy trying to calm herself down, so as _not_ to call attention to herself.

"You okay, Haruka? You look kinda pale, un." The words of the elder blonde snapped her back to reality.

She tried to smile and pass it off as nothing, but wasn't sure if she succeeded. "I'm fine, really, but thank you for your concern, Deidara-san."

To her surprise and to her relief, the effeminate male chuckled a bit; he seemed to have bought her excuse hook, line, and sinker. "Hey, if you're worried 'bout Danna's cooking, he's only poisoned us twice so far, un."

Thanking God for her acting skills – one of the few things she and Evelyn really had in common – Haruka faked a laugh. There then came a retort from the kitchen, one unmistakably from Sasori. "I heard that, brat."

"You were meant to, Danna, un." And the couple engaged in yet another good-natured fight.

Rolling her eyes and smirking in amusement, Haruka headed to help her best friend set the table. Anything was better than listening to the gay boys flirt, and she liked being helpful. It got her mind off of what was going to happen, and gave her time to plan how she would get into a bathroom for the needed period of time, with the door locked. (She hoped she could maneuver it so that it was the downstairs guest bathroom; she knew a disposable toothbrush was always kept there, which would serve her purpose nicely.) From the smell of it, a lot of food had been prepared; she frowned inwardly. She could get off with eating only so little, without being rude, and that was even with the "I'm not a big eater," excuse in place. She'd need to play her cards carefully. Oh joy… This was gonna be fun… Not.

Dinner went off without a hitch. However, Deidara had been watching her quite closely, while Sasori and Evelyn argued over the ethics of making a puppet in memoriam of Chiyo-baa-sama, whom had passed away just a year previously. Not that Haruka knew exactly what was going on, of course; she was too busy trying not to be sick then and there, from what she knew she wouldn't get away with not eating. She wasn't unsatisfied with the food, she reassured her hosts, but she had eaten her fill; this was the excuse provided once she had reached the edge of her endurance. Of course, to continue the ruse, she had made sure she would be the last to finish. During the ensuing moments – no less than five, no more than ten – Haruka sorted through her act, and then set the "performance" in motion.

"Ugh, I don't feel so good…" True enough, but played up to seem more distressing. "I hate to impose," to the concerned looks, "but could I perhaps use your bathroom?" Taking immediate action, Evelyn shot down any protests her parents might have had, before leading the taller blonde to the downstairs guest bathroom. Haruka felt a pang of guilt at conning her best friend thus, but it was quickly shoved from her mind; her plan was coming together nicely. At a questioning glance from the aspiring actress, the martial-artist gave a rehearsed, if slightly true explanation. "I'll be okay; I think something I ate and my stomach didn't agree, is all."

The smaller blonde nodded. "Take the time you need; I'll go appease my 'rents." And with that, she was gone. By the time the silver-blue-eyed blonde had reached the end of the hall, Haruka had closed and locked the bathroom door behind herself. After taking a moment to breath, she moved over to the toilet and knelt down. Lifting both the toilet lid and toilet seat, she braced herself against the cool porcelain for a moment. She took a breath the steady herself, before launching into the first of her well practiced, if painful, dry heaves. They may have been stupid, but they were needed; after all, no-one threw up right away, even if it were a natural process.

Once she was sure that anyone whom might have been listening had been put off, Haruka stood and grabbed the disposable tooth brush from the counter and resumed her position on the floor. As she was used to, she slipped the bristled end of the tooth brush past her molars, and twitched until her gag reflex came up. Yellow-green bile came up. Haruka sighed, frustrated, but not deterred. Normally, she would be using the first two fingers on her right hand (hence why she always only wore fingerless leather gloves) but this situation called for the use of the toothbrush. It wasn't practical to be using her fingers, as she had left her gloves at home; they weren't really suited with her dress shirt (which, thankfully, had three-quarter-length sleeves), dress pants, and dress shoes.

Putting the needless thoughts from her mind, she put herself to task for real this time, silently congratulating herself on her acting as she did so. Even as her conscience ate at her, she couldn't help but smirk a bit (well, mentally, anyway); these three had been easy to fool, and she was going to get out of this scot-free by the looks of it. Little did she know, however, that she had only fooled one of the three; Evelyn had been duped, but Sasori just barely cared, and Deidara was right outside the bathroom door, "making sure she was alright." (In all reality, he was merely confirming what he had suspected all along.) Having taken herself to task for real this time, the effects were rather instantaneous; all the martial-artist received was a momentary warning, during which moment she wrenched the toothbrush from her mouth and dropped it to the floor, before curling forward, gripping the sides of the toilet bowl hard, and puking as if her life depended on it.

She continued to do so for a good minute, forcing herself to ignore the pain, and then it was over. Assessing how her stomach felt, she came to the conclusion that only half of her dinner had come up. Frowning, she allowed herself to breathe away the mix of colored and black spots blossoming before her eyes, as she reached for the toothbrush again; normally everything came up on the first go-round, but it seemed that that was not to be the case this time. To facilitate the second round, she used the handle end of the dental implement, and was rewarded by the rest of the food she had consumed coming back up. Though waves of pain and dizziness had her pale and shaking, she pushed the weakness aside as best she could, before lowering the toilet seat and lid, and then reaching up to flush it. This done, Haruka used the toilet to lever herself back up to her feet.

Gripping the counter hard, both to steady herself and so that she didn't collapse bonelessly and hurt herself, the blonde gazed into the mirror above the sink for a moment. A pale, slightly sweaty, and pained-looking boy stared back at her; one with extremely sharp features, yes, but a boy nonetheless. Pulling her morbid, empty emerald gaze away, she couldn't help but give a soundless laugh; said laugh would have been hollow and dead, had any been around to hear it. As she turned the tap for cold water, and proceeded to rinse out her mouth before washing her face a bit, she couldn't help the morose thought that drifted through her mind. _Maybe I'm a masochist, but I guess it doesn't really matter, in the end… _That, and other such dark thoughts in mind, she turned off the water, wiped her face dry on the hand-towel provided, and then exited the bathroom.

As she had expected, the hall outside the bathroom was deserted; Deidara had made himself scarce as soon as the retching had stopped. Making her way back down the hall and into the living room, Haruka forced herself to appear steady. She could collapse later; for now, she had an act to finish. Bowing formally to her hosts and Evelyn, she thanked them for having her, and said that, though she had enjoyed the evening, she feared her becoming sick had worn out her welcome. At an encouraging glance from his husband, Sasori offered her a ride home; she didn't look in any fit state to be walking back, he said. However, if the look on his face were any indication, he didn't really care either way. _I hate you too, bastard,_ the emerald-eyed blonde thought, but smiled outwardly, and thanked him for the generous offer.

Once goodbye's had been said, silence fell over the Akasuna household. While Evelyn set to washing and drying the dishes from dinner, Deidara remained in the living room, mulling over his conclusions, and the evidence he had been presented which supported them. In all honesty, he didn't want to be thinking these things of one of his daughter's best friends, but… the facts were painfully irrefutable, especially with the way he saw himself in the girl and her actions. That was what made this even worse; as much as he loved being part of his little girl's life, so long as she had a friend whose presence was toxic… he didn't think he could be around if Haruka were as well. The cycle of relapse and recovery was a painful one, and he had already paid his dues within it. All that in mind, he called Evelyn into the living room.

"Sit down, 'Lyn, un. There's something… I think you should know about your friend."

Unused to such seriousness from her Dei-mama as she was – it was usually her Saso-papa who was the serious one – Evelyn complied wordlessly, and took a seat beside her mother on the couch. In her floored state, it seemed the younger blonde had all but forgotten that she still held the dish towel, as she had been in the middle of drying and putting away the dishes from dinner. "W-What is it?" The soccer-player hated how scared she sounded, but supposed that nothing was to be done about it now, as her mother answered her question rather promptly, if hesitantly.

"For one, she's quite the actor, un. For two…" The clay artist trailed off, wondering how best to break the news to Evelyn. With a soft sigh, he continued speaking, at her searching, rather alarmed glance. "For two, un… There isn't an easy way to say this, 'Lyn, but… Haruka has an eating disorder. I don't know if she's anorexic, bulimic, or both, but there is something very wrong with that girl, un."

Upon her first instinct, Evelyn wanted to deny it, but the expression on her mother's face… As she thought more about it, like some sick and twisted puzzle, the pieces began to fall into place. All the hints she should have noticed, all the glaring signs pointing there… She couldn't help but wonder how she had never noticed, even though they had been friends for five months already. However, mostly she wondered why Haruka had never said anything, and why her _best friend_ had seen the need to lie to her in her own home.


End file.
